1. Getting Started with C++

These instructions should be followed by users and developers that would like to work with the C++ command line tools directly. All others should follow the installation instructions of the wrapper package provided for their desired programming language.

1.1. Dependencies

Before building and installing C++ command line tools, users must provide

  • a compiler suite that includes a C++ compiler that supports the C++14 standard,

  • the Meson build system and its prerequisites such as Python 3 and ninja,

  • an MPI installation that is compatible with the compiler suite, and

  • optionally the Eigen software package.

We presently have a single GitHub action that tests the C++ command line tools with both Open MPI and MPICH installed via Ubuntu’s Advanced Packaging Tool (apt) and homebrew on macOS. In addition, we have successfully run tests manually with the Intel MPI implementation as installed by experts on a cluster and made available as a module.

Note that if installing MPI using a package manager, related developer library packages such as libopenmpi-dev or libmpich-dev might need to be installed in addition to the base MPI packages such as openmpi-bin or mpich.

1.2. Meson installation

The Meson build system documentation suggests installing Meson via package manager when possible. Please refer to that documentation for detailed and up-to-date installation information.

If Meson cannot be installed by package manager or the manager’s version is too old, the following is contrary to Meson suggestions but has been used successfully to install Meson with Python into a dedicated virtual environment as well as to install meson in the PATH for use without needing to activate that virtual environment.

$ /path/to/target/python -m venv ~/local/venv/meson
$ . ~/local/venv/meson/bin/activate
$ which python
$ python -m pip install --upgrade pip
$ python -m pip install meson
$ python -m pip list
$ ln -s ~/local/venv/meson/bin/meson ~/local/bin
<add ~/local/bin to PATH if desired and appropriate>
$ deactivate
$ which meson
$ meson --version

Note that this meson virtual environment is for installing just the Meson build system.

1.3. Building & Testing

OpenBT’s Meson build system is setup to automatically detect the compiler suite and MPI installation to use. If Eigen already exists in the system and Meson can find it, then Meson will use it for the build. Otherwise, Meson will automatically obtain a copy of Eigen for internal use.

Developers and C++ users can directly build and install the command line tools, an OpenBT library, and all related headers with tools/build_openbt_clt.sh. This script also runs the command line tool test suite and prints test results. Please read the documentation at the top of the script for more information.

Note

The state and effectiveness of the C++ command line tool test suite is under investigation (Issue 7).